Russian propaganda spreads fake video about Ukrainian 'growing strawberries on the graves' of fallen soldiers

Russian Telegram channels shared a video about "Ukrainian artist Mykyta Solovii" who allegedly grows strawberries on the graves of fallen Ukrainian soldiers and then sells them. According to propagandists, the "artist" seems to have been implementing this initiative since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The video states that a hundred grams of strawberries cost $100, and all funds are allegedly transferred to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The propagandists in the video also "quoted" the man as saying that his dream is to "turn all the hundreds of thousands of graves of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers into plantations in order to change the perception of cemeteries forever."

This is a cynical fake created by Russian propagandists from random footage found in the public domain. They took the real story of another Ukrainian as the basis of the fake video and distorted the facts.

In the first frame of the video, the Russians used a photo that was taken on November 1, 2022, on All Saints' Day, at the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv. It can be found in the photo bank of the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN.

A picture from another frame can be found on a Russian website specializing in fence construction.

In the video, the Russians also used photos of strawberries and shots that obviously are in no way related to the fake story of the propagandists.

As for the story about "Ukrainian artist Mykyta Solovii," we did not find any information about this person or his activities in open sources. On the other hand, the website of the Suspilne news outlet contains a story about Ukrainian Dmytro Solovei who earlier worked as a teacher of solo singing and now is a soldier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Together with his wife, he has been growing strawberries in the Khmelnytskyi region for 15 years. However, he does it on an ordinary plot of land, rather than on the "cemeteries of Ukrainian soldiers," as claimed by Russian propagandists.

The propagandists were likely "inspired" by Dmytro's story when creating the fake, although the man's name and surname and information about his activities have been changed.

This video fake contains several narratives at once. First, it aims to create a public opinion that Ukrainians allegedly began to lose their common sense against the background of the war. Secondly, in this way, propagandists continue to intimidate the Ukrainian population with fictitious figures regarding "heavy losses" in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Russian propaganda earlier shared pseudo advice, allegedly from the "Ministry of Energy," to increase the anxiety of Ukrainians ahead of winter.

Dmytro Badrak